The graveyard at St. Rita’s Haunted House was filled with
zombies, and they were all shambling towards us. They came from open crypts,
the surrounding underbrush, and even across the rickety bridge we had traversed
only a short time before. With only a camera to defend ourselves with, we took
several shots of the lurching ghouls and then decided it was a good time to
start moving. The one thing we hadn’t counted on was our own innate clumsiness
as we stumbled over our own feet. It was like a scene out of a zombie
comedy-pinwheeling our arms to maintain balance, we managed to stay upright and
came to a screeching halt just inches away from a half open coffin. Nearby, the
cemetery’s gravedigger had been leaning on his shovel and taking in our
impromptu novelty act. Nonplussed, he looked at us and said “Looks like the
grave is calling out to you”!

Zombies and hungry graves are only a few of the things
that await you at the 38th annual St. Rita’s Haunted House. There
are Crawlers, homicidal household staff, assorted psychos and mad doctors,
morticians, clowns, sideshow exhibits, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Tom
Flege. Can you spot the one that doesn’t belong? Yep, that’d be Tom,
co-chairman of the event and The HOD!!!’s longtime guide to all things haunted
up at St. Rita’s. Tom’s doing a bit of everything tonight-working admissions at
the front of the queue line, selling tickets, and troubleshooting any problems
that might pop up. Tom’s pretty pleased with the night’s attendance-despite the
frigid temperatures hovering in the 30’s the line stretches down the hill and
brings back memories of the days when crowds would snake up and down several
times. Before the advent of pro haunts, the expansion of attractions and consequent
increased competition in the 90’s, Tom says that “We used to get 3000 people or
more a night on weekends”. Tonight, about halfway through the evening, about
300 people have gone through, putting the school ahead of the pace of last year
on the same date (they had 420). Down by the bottom of the hill near the
souvenir stand there’s a familiar caped figure striding towards a group of
hauntgoers. No, it’s not Superman or Batman but rather the original caped
crusader, Dracula. The actor playing Dracula looks familiar and it turns out
he’s also a Flege, in this case Tom’s brother. He’s been playing the character
and working the queue line for 25 years now. We at the HOD!!! have great
memories of him working the crowd in conjunction with ‘stilt Frankenstein’ in
the late 1980’s. Currently Dracula’s rounding up a group of wayward hauntgoers
who have wandered down the hill and out of line, putting them back at the gate
to the front door. Not surprisingly, two more members of Tom’s extended family
are at the front door. The artist referred to in hushed tones only as “Tom’s
Nephew” controlled the flow of people into the house, making sure that enough
time elapsed between groups so that they wouldn’t be running into each other.
Tom’s niece Ellie, who up until last year had never seen her picture in an
HOD!!! feature, is now two for two in that department. She’s also helping out
with controlling the queue line and we’re pretty sure she’s the force behind
the Haunt’s new Facebook page. So remember, while you don’t HAVE to be a Flege
to work at the haunt, it sure doesn’t hurt!

In a bit of news from last season, Tom tells us that the
thieves who broke into the Haunt in October of 2012 were never caught. “They
did get fingerprints,” he says, “But they weren’t a match for anything in the
fingerprint database”. Maybe at some point the crooks will get nailed for
another crime, be fingerprinted, and then brought to justice. Nothing could be
lower than a punk who effectively is stealing from children, and nothing would
please us more than seeing them thrown into a cell with a Big Bubba who found
them ‘real purty’. For now, St. Rita’s has taken steps to insure that a similar
type of crime won’t happen again.

On a much happier note, The HOD!!! finally remembered to
ask Tom about the elaborate scene in the tent across from the ticket booth.
With an altar, ersatz ‘torches’, a horde of monstrous manikins, and several
rows of church pews, it turns out it’s part of a long-standing promotion St.
Rita’s has done in conjunction with radio station B-105. It’s been used the
past few years for the radio station’s ‘Love At First Fright Wedding’! Chosen
from a pool of entries, one couple gets the full ‘haunted wedding’ treatment
inside the tent. Flowers, a cake, wedding bands, and a legally binding ceremony
performed by Stattman from B105 make up the Grand Prize. And of course in the
spirit of Halloween, the bride and groom are kitted out as macabre creatures of
the night! Even though we at The HOD!!! love Halloween, this isn’t something we
would ever have chosen to do-but hey, if you’re really into the lifestyle, want
15 minutes of fame, and you’re madly in love but maybe lack the money to cement
the bargain-it might be just the thing for you! For now, though, during normal
hours of operation, the torches are kept lit and anyone’s welcome to have a
seat and relax for awhile.

At this point Steve Haverkos joined the group. Steve’s
also a longtime co-chairman of the Haunted House. He tells us that in addition
to the school’s core group of actors, St. Rita’s also features actors from
‘guest schools’ on a nightly basis. Earning credit for their community service,
it works out well for both the haunt and the kids-and they get to have a good
time as well. “Tonight, we’ve got a group from Hamilton-Baden in there.
Tomorrow we’re going to have a large group from Kenton. The Kenton group has
about 200 members, but only about 30 were chosen to come up here-getting to
work at the haunt was a good incentive for the teachers to hold out”, Steve
laughs. The number of actors means that St. Rita’s probably has more creatures
per square inch than any other haunt-except for Freddy’s Boiler room, every
scene in the haunt had at least two characters and some as many as six or
seven! The rotating guest schools also means the arriving ghouls still have
that initial burst of enthusiasm and haven’t been fatigued by several days or
weeks of working in the haunt.

This season the farmhouse’s second best entrance point is
being used-the rear doorway that leads straight up the steps to the second
floor of the old farmhouse (we preferred entering through the basement
staircase a few feet away, but when the vortex shed was installed it eliminated
this venue as an entrance). While St. Rita’s is a classic old school
(literally!) haunt, over the years they’ve made sure to ride the wave of haunt
technology as much as possible. Upon climbing the stairs, the portraits
hung along its length begin to speak to our group. It’s a ca-‘coffiny’ of
voices that serves to establish that there are some strange things going on
here. Reaching the top of the stairs, the bathroom is the next room
encountered, and there’s more new tech here as well. As well as the filth and
dozens of rubber roaches glued to the wall, there’s also a projection system
that makes it appear as if there are dozens more roaches racing across the
walls! For a projection, it’s awfully convincing, and the effect is punctuated
by the abrupt appearance of an angry attendant-someone needs to suffer the
consequences of this mess, and it looks like that someone is going to be you!
The bathroom leads into the kitchen, and it doesn’t look like the chef here has
washed his hands-no matter, since it’s just as filthy. Shelves heaped with gore
and miscellaneous body parts stretch the length of the room. The adjoining
dining room has several ghouls wanting to make you the main course, and also
has a couple more pieces of new haunt tech: full-motion changing portraits.
Normal looking portraits of a man and woman slowly morph into hideous
demons-and unlike the basic changing portraits found in stores, their bodies
are writhing and moving as well. Tom explains that it’s a simple combination of
a rear-projected image using a DVD as its source. Next on the tour is a bedroom
with a surprise hidden in the floor-a dead body under glass that illuminates as
you walk over it. You’ll shortly meet the pint-sized crazed lunatic that put
her there. These first five rooms comprise the ‘traditional haunt’ section of
St. Rita’s.

Still on the second floor, the theme changes to that of
an insane asylum. Doors leading off of the first room feature CGI effects of a
woman having her face bashed into a glass panel after she desperately screams
for help on the other side of the metal door. There are cages holding prisoners,
but just as many of the crazies are running around loose-yes, the inmates are
literally running the asylum. One of them slams a guard’s head into a table
over and over, and a group of them has taken over the medical ward. They’re not
doctors, but have always wanted to be one, and are eyeing hauntgoers as potential
do-it-yourself projects! Going down the stairs, another inmate is boxing up a
failed experiment inside a coffin and shoving it inside the crematorium
furnace. Being crazy does indeed have its drawbacks, as he hasn’t noticed that
the girl is still alive-and kicking-but the hungry furnace claims her remains.

After that, a little levity might be called for-and it’s
found in several rooms set up as a traveling circus. There are Klowns, the
wheel of misfortune (with a spinning skull pointing to such wonderful results
as poison and torture), a stilt walker wearing a bizarre long-nosed Plague
Doctor mask, an escape artist in dire distress, groups of rogue feral children,
and most disturbingly of all, a bearded woman who it appears is staffing a
kissing booth.

The rest of the rooms inside the haunt on the first floor
and basement are given over to movie monsters. St. Rita’s is about the only
haunt left in Cincinnati where you’ll find movie monsters being used, and they’ve
given them the most impressive rooms to show off their talents. Slasher Jason
Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame exhibits his handiwork right
outside the Psycho Circus-it’s the body of a young woman who’s been cut in two
and most of the flesh and muscle on her upper body has been cut off to the
bone. But yet-she still lives, as a nearby moonshiner stares on in disbelief.
Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare On Elm street is next up, and he’s been outfitted
with a few tricks. Not only does his razor glove strike sparks as it glides across
the metal railing, but this chilly October night he’s getting ready to wish you
a Great Fall-really. A classic St. Rita’s effect ensures that it
happens-checking out our caption for the picture of Freddy above will give you
an idea how. Finally, a Cave full of Crawlers from “The Descent 2” takes up the
entire basement. A cave in and a falling boulder threatens to leave hauntgoers
trapped down here with them, a fate seemingly suffered by several haggard
looking victims milling about.

A handy staircase leads back to the first floor and a
trip through a vortex tunnel seems to lead to safety-but that proves to be
fleeting and illusionary as the large cemetery teeming with zombies we
described in our first paragraph is encountered after crossing a swaying rope
bridge. There are crypts, mausoleums, open coffins, and the zombies are coming
from all directions. They’re slow, so as long as you stay on your feet, you
should be able to make it to safety-but as our exercise in clumsiness showed,
nothing can be taken for granted in this living, breathing horror show. But
assuming you live to tell the tale, there’s a trailer filled with souvenirs
(including $10 T-shirts, the least expensive haunt T’s in town), another
serving up food, and in a final show of class and attention to customer service,
a sign thanking you for coming out. The latter is an indicator of the
family-friendly atmosphere that St. Rita’s is noted for-not dwelling on blood
and gore, they concentrate more on providing an exciting show full of proverbial
chills and thrills, making it a popular destination for families that want to
attend as a group.

Not only is St. Rita’s the area’s oldest haunt, but
they’re also the least expensive. Print out a convenient coupon found right on
their website and you’ll be able to get in for only $7. Buying an online combo
ticket for $20 on the Dark Combo site (good for admission to both St. Rita’s
and the USS Nightmare) can bring the cost of a trip to St. Rita’s down to an amazing
$2! Since all profits go directly to St. Rita’s School for the Deaf, everyone
involved wins. The old house on the hill has been a beacon for local
thrill-seekers for decades and been the training ground for several generations
of area haunters. So come experience its scenes of horror and walk its hallowed
halls. Watch your footing in the cemetery, though. The grave-as well as the
haunt-might be calling out your name, but if you listen, you’ll never live to see
the 50th anniversary show in just 12 more years...

Always Getting Underfoot

Under The Floorboards The Dead Lurk...

Turning Up The Heat

St. Rita's Has A Unique Way Of Making Sure

Hauntgoers Have A Hot Time In The Old Haunt!

Mr. Bubble

Washing Away The Bloodsy-Wudsy!

2013 EVENT INFORMATION

St. Rita's Haunted House is located at 1720
Glendale-Milford Road, Evendale OH 45215 (exit 14 off I-75 behind St. Rita
School For The Deaf). It is open Thursday through Sunday, October 3rd through
November 2nd. Hours are 7-11 on Friday and Saturday, 7-10 Thursday and Sunday.
Admission is $10 with $6 group rates (minimum size 15) available. Get a $3
discount coupon here (also $3 off for Boy
or Girl Scouts in uniform) or pick one up at Costume Castle, Blockbuster Video,
KOI Auto Parts, or Goodwill. You can get a multi-haunt discount ticket for St.
Rita's and USS Nightmare under the Dark Combo banner-visit the DarkCombo website for details. There're also lights on kid's matinees
(kids under 12) on Saturday, October 26th and Sunday, October 27th from 3 PM-5
PM ($2!). Produced by the Greater Springdale Jaycees with 100% of profits
donated to St. Rita School For The Deaf. Sponsored by Alleen Company, Hormel,
Krogers, Empress Chili, Seven Up/RC, LaRosas, Complete Fastener, Vonderhaars
Mkt, Suburban Propane, Blockbuster, Tobor Electronics, Joseph Berning Printing
Co, Shaw Farms, RED Construction, Costume Castle, Franks Glass, Franks Auto
Body, Noctum Design, JTM, Quality Sports, American Bus, Goodwill, KOI Auto
Parts, http://www.hauntworld.com , http://www.scaryohio.com
, www.hauntedhouse.com , FOX 19, WSTR TV 64, and B-105 FM. Call
(513) 771-1060, (513) 771-7600 or go to the St. Rita website for more
information.

ST. RITA'S HAUNTED HOUSE 2012

Keeping An Eye Out For You!

Crawlers Lurk In The Darkness Of The Cave

Where YOU'RE The Endangered Species!

IT ALL ADDS UP TO HORROR!

As longtime St. Rita’s Haunt
chairman Tom Flege guided us to the front door of the old brick farmhouse on
the hill, he asked the HOD!!! if we wanted to go through by ourselves or with a
group. Well, it’s always more fun to go through with a group-and when it’s four tween girls that are likely to delightfully overreact to everything,
so much the better. After informing them that we expected them to
protect us from the monsters inside, we waited our turn to enter. At first the
laser light show playing against the side of the house garnered their attention
(they thought it particularly ‘kewl’ that a set of police lights on top of the
unit kicked on during the chorus to Ghostbusters). But soon the girls began to
talk about several mundane matters, the most pressing of which seemed to be a
math test they were having tomorrow. All of them seemed to agree that math
sucked and that they weren’t looking forward to it. With that, the skull-faced
ghoul at the front door opened the door and beckoned them inside. Well, the
girls lived up to our expectations-they by turns screamed, hid behind each
other, tore through rooms at top speed, laughed hilariously, and offered their
friends up as sacrifices to the evil beings inside. When last seen, they were
dashing through the graveyard towards the parking lot, giggling and screeching
with big grins on their face. Their reaction was just what a haunt operator
wants to see! While the girls might have sucked at math, even they knew that 37
years of haunting, over 18 scenes of elaborate horror, and 50 monsters all adds up to
horror!

The Haunted
House fundraiser run by St. Rita’s and the Greater Springdale Jaycees has
always been a cut above most charity haunts when it comes to having elaborate,
well put together scenes and mechanical effects. This year the creators seem to
have raised the bar another notch, as the rooms have a level of detail that
would make some pro haunts envious. Many of the rooms have mechanical or CGI
effects, ranging from ‘electrified’ fences to springing corpses to CGI door
displays. Most of these are made on site to save money and allow more of the
proceeds to go back to the School. The event has been held in
the same Civil War era brick farmhouse for 35 years now. There have been few structural
changes in that time-an addition for the Vortex tunnel being the only major
one. Despite this, the haunt has managed to stay ‘fresh’ over the years through
a clever combination of changing the entrances/exits from season to season and
creatively altering the path through the house. The HOD!!! has diagrams of each
of the 35 annual events, and a quick look through them would seem to confirm
that St. Rita’s has never used the same layout twice. The basement is cool and
clammy, perfect for housing the cavern. There are strange architectural
features along the way such as brick interior walls with windows (a feature
left over when two rooms were added to the upper story). One very atmospheric
touch was the open windows on the second floor that had their curtains billowing
in the night breeze. Brief glimpses of the outside world could be seen through
them, giving the event that extra shot of credibility-not to mention allowing
the actors to interact with the crowds outside between groups. You just can’t
beat a haunted house that’s actually held in a house!

St. Rita’s remains a traditional
haunted house-that is, it features scenes that are from a variety of sub-genres
and don’t stick to a strict theme. However, this season there seems to be some
sub-theming going on. Most of the rooms belong to a larger set that carries a
theme throughout. For example, the first four rooms are ‘classic haunted house’,
featuring twisted versions of rooms that would be in any normal home. The
stairs to the second floor have a set of armor and a shaking chandelier. The
next room features a disgusting bathroom crawling with insects and splattered
with feces-or worse. And the cleaning lady’s looking to get payback from
SOMEONE…This is followed up by the vampire’s dining room, which has a few
zombies as dinner guests and also features a small gore-encrusted kitchen that
the ghouls sometimes use as a detour. Then there’s the doll room, with a large
crib and a corpse that shoots out from a bed-not to mention a creepy child
playing on what appears to be the remains of several victims in a glass-topped
box. Next is a thematic switch to an insane asylum where it’s hard to tell the
doctors from the patients. The first room features the medical staff applying
‘shock therapy’ to a caged patient via electric chair. A door houses an
impressive CGI effect that shows a huge brute pulverizing the face of a nurse
by continually smashing her face into the window, cracking the glass-and her
skull. Heading deeper into the asylum takes you to the patient’s cells, where a
breakout has occurred. Several of the giggling inmates are seen tearing apart
one of the staff, nailing their body parts to the wall. Heading down the steps,
more cells are encountered-some with the butchered remains of their former
occupants, others holding crazies with chainsaws that shoot up sparks as they
struggle to cut through the bars.

The next area is the Big Top, entered
through a garish looking façade behind a curtain of streamers. The game area of
the midway has been overrun with murderous Klowns whose idea of fun is making
hauntgoers into the prizes for the next game. Entering a fun house with
distorted mirrors seems tame by comparison until a klown comes springing out of
a deadly jack-in-the-box and a carnival barker emerges from the wall! It seems
as if the circus is located out in the country, because the next scene is of a
young lady sitting in an outhouse outside a barn. When the doors are opened,
it’s obvious more is missing than just her pants-but you sure can’t call her
spineless! Passing by the farm’s cabin ‘plunges’ hauntgoers into Freddy
Krueger’s nightmare world as his glove shoots sparks off a wire barrier in the
boiler room. ‘Plunge’ is the operative word here as you’ll get a ‘sinking
feeling’ from the dropping hydraulic lift that’s a St. Rita’s trademark.

The basement cavern is one huge
themed area all by itself. In its early years it was generally themed around
generic monsters-a witch’s lair one season, the home of cannibals the next,
then the lair of a witch doctor. For much of the last several years it’s had a
pirate theme. This season might be its strongest yet-a siren warns to clear the
area and a boulder from a cave-in threatens to crush hauntgoers. Getting past
that, they thread their way through the narrow passages to be assaulted by the
bat-headed hybrid Crawlers from the movie “The Descent 2”. The Crawlers blend
in well with the fog and dirty walls of the cave, mimicking their camouflage
ability from the film (and the cave-in follows the plots of both films as
well). Ascending from the depths of the caves brings hauntgoers into a spinning
vortex filled with spirits from beyond-and into the arms of even more of the
undead upon exiting the house into the graveyard next door. Filled with zombies
and monuments that spring to life, it leads into a winding path around the
graveyard that’s just perfect for a mad dash to freedom-with a handy stop at the
souvenir shop along the way!

And once again the presence of Tom Flege’s extended
family made itself felt. Tom told the HOD!!! that the haunt has anywhere
between 45 and 50 actors inside at any given time. Now, while they weren’t ALL
his family, it’s not from lack of trying! The mysterious actor that is known in
hushed tones as ‘Tom’s Nephew’ was again working the front door, tricked out as
a skeleton in a suit and top hat. He’s currently terrorizing a group of girls who are alternately screaming and laughing. His sister Ellie was working
in the cavern, pulling double duty-not only regulating the flow of crowds
through the event but popping out of the thick fog to terrorize groups once
they found their way inside. Several other members of the family are likely to
be found lurking about over the weekend.

You might also remember Patty from our feature last
season-now entering her 23rd year as a volunteer, she seems to have
settled in as the Haunted House’s ticket taker, replacing the much-missed ‘Granny’
who passed away three seasons ago. Right now Patty’s dressed as a witch. If you’re
an old-timer like us who remembers the Larry Smith show from local 60’s TV,
this means we HAVE to call her ‘Batty Patty from Cincinnati’. She’s running
through the rules of the haunt for an excited group of teens. Another volunteer
at the haunt was Wendy, who along with her husband runs an elaborate home haunt
in Liberty Township. While she doesn’t look anywhere near old enough to have
worked on the classic Hamilton-Fairfield Jaycees House on the Hill back in the
80’s (as well as the follow-up events at Fantasy Farm and Lesourdesville), she
was indeed a part of that fabled attraction and brought much of what she
learned to her home haunt. The layout of her property is perfect for a haunted
trail, and some of the photos she showed us (like a giant homemade skull
flanked by massive gargoyles attached to a façade on the front of her house)
indicate that it would give some pro events some stiff competition. She fits
right in at St. Rita’s where many of the event’s organizers have decades of
experience putting together and running haunts.

Most of the actors don’t have decades of experience-they’re
mainly from area schools and civic groups and are rotated on a nightly basis.
Tonight it’s a local school, while the weekend will see the event infused with
the Boy Scouts who will be setting up their camps on the St. Rita’s grounds. As
indicated by our earlier description of the tour, tonight’s group is quite
energetic. Despite not being career haunt actors, we were impressed by how the
zombies in the graveyard and mausoleum didn’t break character when it turned
out the girls in our group knew every single one of them and attempted to
engage them in conversation. Other actors alternately tormented the girls, backed off to give them hope of escape, and then moved in for the kill. Throughout the house enthusiasm and energy were high, and there were also quite a few adult actors to add some experience to the mix.

An item of interest for haunt collectors out there is
that St. Rita’s is selling their event T-Shirts from prior years for only $2
(!). Some of the ‘vintage’ shirts go all the way back to the late 1990’s. As
you might imagine, at that price they’ve been going fast. For haunt fans, it’d
be a great way to expand your wardrobe at a bargain price!

Despite the fact that the House is having a strong crowd
for a Thursday night, not everything has been good times up at the old brick
farmhouse. After closing down on Sunday, October 22nd, the event’s
ticket booth was invaded by thugs who broke out a window and made off with over
$850 in proceeds, perhaps as much as $1600. Since St. Rita’s admission price is
the lowest in town, it takes a lot of people to bring in that much money. And
since 100% of the proceeds go to the school, it represented a big hit to this
importadnt fundraiser. We don’t have to tell you that anyone who would steal from
children is a first class dirtbag, so if you have any information on the crime
please call Crimestoppers at (513) 352-3040 or the Evendale Police at
(513)563-2249.

One little known fact about St.
Rita’s is that it was the inspiration for a computer game for the Commodore
64/128 way back in the 1980’s. Using the house’s layout, it was a classic text
adventure that challenged players to make their way through dozens of scenes of
horror in order to cleanse the evil dwelling inside. Some monsters had to be
avoided, some tackled head on, others defeated with special objects or by using
certain features of the room. Upon completing the game successfully and
escaping the house, players were treated to a crude animated exterior shot that
also used the actual house as its inspiration. It was marketed through the
pages of Fangoria magazine along with several other efforts that were based on
other area attractions. It was entertaining for its day and while we still have
the game disc, we wish we had a working C64 to play it on!

St. Rita’s has terrorized several
generations of area hauntgoers, and continues to do so with style. With the
lowest admission price in town for a quality haunt ($7 after using an easily
obtained $3 coupon), it’s perfect for cost-conscious families. There are also
lights on tours, flashlight tours available for the easily scared, and the week
of Halloween the attraction is open on some non-traditional nights (Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday). This makes it easy to get up to the house on the hill
and help them replace the stolen money while getting a tour through a classic
haunt in the bargain. Despite the burglary, St. Rita’s continues to put
together an equation that adds up to horror.